As Cold As Ice // Charlie Gillespie

Chapter 6

"Mia?" I hardly manage to keep my balance as I just practiced my toe loop. Once I regained my balance I look over at the barrier. "What are you doing here Charlie?" He rubs his neck looking adorable and I take a deep breath before I glide over to him. "We're waiting for you." Who's waiting for me? I take my phone out of my pocket. My playlist had eventually stopped but I somehow still didn't realize how much time had passed. I have several missed calls from Sarah.

"Omg I'm sorry. I completely lost track of time." Again, I should add but I don't. It happens all the time. I really need to set myself an alarm so I don't constantly miss meetings. "Come on." Charlie starts walking towards the entrance. I step off the ice and take of my skates, changing into my normal shoes. I quickly sprit over to the changing rooms and change into my regular clothes, storing everything else in my locker.

Once I get outside everyone's already waiting. Sarah wraps her arm around my shoulder. "Mia, we really need to get you a proper watch." She's joking but I still feel a little bad about making them all wait. The girls are used to it by now but today our group is so much bigger and I just don't like that I kept them all waiting. We all hover into our cars to go to the local train station. Luckily, we still catch the train we planed on taking, so my little delay didn't cause any big trouble.

"Why didn't you come get me?" I ask Sarah once we found a free seat. We're all scattered across the train because it's so packed. She just shrugs as she says "Charlie said he'd do it." I turn to look at her, confusion flushing over me. "He did?" A cheeky grin appears on her lips. "He did. And I saw no reason to stop him." I shake my head at her. "I can't believe you." She ignores my comment, letting herself sink into her seat, still the same grin on her face.

"What?" I say as she looks at me. "He likes you." I shake my head once again. Before I can say anything she adds "Mia, don't deny it. I have eyes." - "You're delusional." Obviously he does not like me. We don't even know each other. "If you say so." Sarah knows when not to push me. Right now is one of those moments. It's ridiculous and it's something I don't wanna think about.

He's a nice guy and I'm glad we get along but that's it. We'll be living together until next Friday, then we'll probably stay in more or less regular contact until it's time for me to live with him for two weeks and then the contact will get less and less. I've seen it happen every year. I heard the girls at practice talk about how close they are with their paired exchange student and how excited they are to visit and then, a couple of weeks after they returned it all died down until one day it was a distant memory to them. That's just how it works. Sure, there are exceptions but that's what they are: exceptions.

Once we arrive in New York the whole group gathers outside of the Grand Central Terminal. "So boys, what do you feel up to?" Sarah turns to Lukas, directing the question more towards him than anyone else. She's secretly been crushing on him for almost half a year now but she never had the courage to ask him out. I know the fact that he's part of today's group is making her nervous and happy at the same time.

Lukas just shrugs and turns around to the rest of the group. Everyone is quiet for a second, well that's starting out marvelous. Charlie is the first to speak. "Mia, what's your favorite spot?" I think about it for a moment. "Central Park, precisely the Alice in Wonderland statue." Sarah turns around and raises an eyebrow at me. I've never told her but she never asked either. We don't go there, usually. That's something I do by myself.

"Central Park sounds nice. Why don't we grab some coffee on the way and chill out there?" Lukas says. No one has any objections so that's what we do. It's only a roughly 20 minute walk up to Central Park. We stroll through it for a little, looking for a proper spot to sit down. Against my worries it's actually quite nice to be around some new people and the group works surprisingly well.

"So Mia, I hear you're our high hope for the next competition?" I blush a little because now I'm the center of attention. Everyone is looking at me. I try to focus on Lukas. "Yeah... I guess I am." I try to not think about it too much because it just puts pressure on something that I don't want to feel pressured about. I feel like whenever I stress myself out about it or push myself my performance gets weaker instead of better. Lukas nods slightly.

"Did you choose a song yet?" - "I have a few favorites but nothing solid yet." I don't like this conversation. When I'm on the ice it's ok that I'm the center of attention. I feel good about what I'm doing but this makes me feel a little uncomfortable, especially because I don't have any answer yet. I've just started talking about potential elements of my program with Couch Lewis but we're far from anything real yet.

"Hey Mia." I turn to face Charlie, who's sitting a little further away from me. "Can you show me that statue you talked about earlier?" Without waiting for my answer he gets up and comes walking over towards me. He's holding out his hand for me to take so I do and get up. Once we're a few feet away I whisper "Thanks."